Filming my last few days at the house.

There is a place about 40 minutes outside of Toronto. It is called Missasauga. It is a really interesting and pretty suburb of Toronto. It is also the place I have called my "home" for the past 2 weeks. There is a house that we are using that is supposed to be my home in the movie. We set up our "base camp" about 5 minutes away from the home we are using. Base camp is the place where all the trailers stay. It's where I get dropped off in the morning and where I get dressed and into hair and make up.

We first went to the house during rehearsals and it was really nice because it was the first time I met the family who really lives in the house. There is a boy named Alex and he is 11. Alex and I played catch in the street and he introduced me to his friends. It was nice because I got to know more people here and it made me a little less homesick. Alex plays on a really amazing hockey team. He actually had visited Chicago recently to play some teams in the suburbs there. Thanks to Alex, I started to feel at home in my movie home.

Before we started to film in the house, the art department and props department changed everything. They took one of the rooms upstairs and made it into Ryan's room (that's me). They painted the walls orange because they knew it was my favorite color. They also put a lot of things that I would like in the room so I would feel comfortable. It was very cool. They made an erector set ferris wheel on my desk because it's cool and also my character is interested in architecture. The more I spent time in my room, the more it felt like my actual room.

After two weeks of filming at the house, we finally finished on Wednesday. It was weird to say goodbye to my movie house. and to Alex, my new friend. I had kind of lived a life there. I had eaten Thanksgiving dinner, and played with my movie sister and brother. I had taken runs with my movie dad, and cried on my movie moms lap. I had even slept there. I also had to say goodbye to my baby brother Ethan in the movie because he is done filming. I was really sad because I had become very attached. It seems like when you make a movie, you spend so much time pretending that sometimes the way you feel about people becomes real. I cried when I said good bye to Ethan and to Alex. I know I will see them again, but it was still hard.

One thing that made it easier to move on was that on Tuesday my sister and Dad came to visit! I will post more on that tomorrow!!!